Africa Buffeted by International Issues

By Gregory Simpkins

Africa, as with the rest of the developing world, continues to be impacted by events on the international stage – from the Ukraine-Russia conflict to COVID-19 to supply chain disruptions to international inflation to a global currency realignment. Now the brief mutiny within Russia likely will have an ongoing effect on African countries using Russian mercenaries for security.

The Wagner Group (officially called PMC Wagner) is a private military organization that is owned and financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a 61-year-old Russian oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The group first came to international notice in 2014, when it was backing pro-Russian separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine, according to the BBC. At that time, it was a secretive organization that was mostly operating in Africa and the Middle East. Back then the group was thought to have had about 5,000 fighters from Russia’s elite regiments and special forces. However, in January of this year, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense said that the Wagner Group then consisted of 50,000 fighters in Ukraine alone and had become a key component of the Ukraine campaign.

Who knows how large the organization is post-rebellion?

The BBC also reported that the organization even started recruiting in large numbers in 2022 because Russia had trouble finding people for the regular army. About 80 percent of Wagner’s members in Ukraine have been drawn from prisons, the UN National Security Council said at the start of 2023.

Officially, the Wagner Group does not exist. The now globally infamous private military contractor (PMC), which has operated in nearly 30 countries and taken on a key role in the war in Ukraine, is not actually a registered company in Russia or anywhere else. In fact, PMCs like Wagner are illegal in Russia. And yet the Wagner Group has been an essential and controversial element of the battlefield calculation for the Kremlin in its war against Ukraine.

Lately, however, the group has been getting a lot more visible. As Russia’s regular military forces began to suffer heavy losses in Ukraine, Wagner began recruiting more openly, posting billboards, social media ads and slick videos promising aspiring fighters glamour, adventure and even an “unforgettable summer with new friends.” Russia’s state-run media outlets are now openly discussing and celeb rating Wagner’s activities, not just in Ukraine but around the world. Some 1,000 mercenaries, including senior leaders of the group, were deployed in Ukraine in March, according to Western officials. Since then, they have suffered heavy losses but also recruited heavily, making it difficult to know their current strength.

But the Wagner Group has been essential in Russia’s plans for involvement in Africa. Most of its contracts have been in Africa. The PMC has been active in nine African countries: Mali, Libya, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), Angola, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Mozambique and Sudan, according to the BBC.

In the fall of 2019, poorly trained Wagner operatives met their match in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province and had to withdraw following several deadly ambushes by Islamic State-affiliated insurgents. Nevertheless, Wagner was hired by Mali’s military junta and has negotiated new deals with countries as varied as Burkina Faso and Eritrea.

Wagner fighters have participated in Libya’s civil war on behalf of Moscow’s preferred side: the forces led by rebel Gen. Khalifa Haftar, leader of the Libyan National Army. In both the Central African Republic and Sudan, Wagner has been hired by the government for security services, while other companies linked to Prigozhin have been granted gold and diamond concessions.

Former U.S. diplomat Elizabeth Shackleford told Grid earlier this year that in contrast to U.S. security support which often comes with at least some oversight and human rights requirements, “What you get with Wagner Group is quite simple. You’re basically trading commodities for security assistance.”

In Mali and the Central African Republic, the Wagner Group has been operating for several years, pursuing private interests while also serving those of the Kremlin. It has facilitated France’s loss of influence, particularly in the Sahel region, as well as deepening the divide that currently separates Paris and Mali which has sought to expel the French military. This achievement could serve as a bargaining chip for Prigozhin in the highly likely event that his conflict with Putin has not truly ended. Still, one might ask how the Russian security aid, tied to control granted over African resources, differs from France or any other neocolonialists.

Back in Russia, while the ostensible plan for the Wagner rebellion was not to topple Putin but rather replace the military leaders that Prigozhin feels have failed the country, it has weakened Putin to an extent we can’t know yet. The fact that Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko had to intervene to forestall the Wagner Group march on Moscow and accept Prigozhin in exile demonstrates the weakness now revealed in Putin’s leadership. If the reports are true that Lukashenko is bragging about his role in “saving” Moscow, that only adds to the humiliation of the Putin regime.

Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist and author of the book, “All the Kremlin’s Men,” told the New Yorker that Prigozhin, has amassed a massive following on social media and yet may have larger political ambitions. Zygar said the rebellion has effectively exposed Putin as the sort of out-of-touch elite he used to decry.

“There came a moment when Prigozhin was no longer Putin’s puppet,” Zygar said. “Pinocchio became a real boy,” Zygar said.

“Putin is weaker. I have the feeling he is not really running the country. Certainly, not the way he once did. He is still President, but all the different clans now have the feeling that ‘Russia after Putin’ is getting closer. Putin is still alive. He is still there in his bunker. But there is the growing feeling that he is a lame duck, and they have to prepare for Russia after Putin.”

Although elements in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) may be enjoying the weakening of the Putin regime now, the story inside Russia is still unfolding, and no one can say what the final result will be for Russia or the rest of the world. Certainly, one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals shouldn’t be in the hands of an unstable regime. It was bad enough to hear Putin threaten the use of nuclear weapons, but what if a successor government is even more hardline and aggressive than his?

As for Africa, Russia has used the Wagner Group as its stalking horse on the continent, pretending that it had no connection with this mercenary organization. Now it’s clear that while it operated somewhat independently of Moscow, it pursued the government’s interests while making side money on their own. What now happens to the African interests of an exiled Wagner Group? Russia supposedly wants to take over Wagner assets in Africa, but practically, how would that work since those assets are in the possession of a private company and not a government? Can African governments continue to have relations with Prigozhin and his non-Wagner entities while in exile? If Wagner troops are integrated into the Russian military, then will Russia now openly safeguard African clients? What happens if there is a successful coup in Russia; which side will African allies of Russia take?

There are many more questions that remain to be answered as this situation develops. African allies of Russia were working through Prigozhin’s organization, and none of them knows yet what the new dispensation will look like. African governments have learned not to trust former colonial powers such as France or depend on a United States government that hasn’t seemed to have its full interest in Africa. So, if Russia is no longer an effective security blanket for the continent, to whom will these African governments turn in their time of need?

Russia is the largest arms provider to African nations, but Western sanctions have hit that trade hard, as has Russia’s need to pursue the war in Ukraine. Thus far, China protects Chinese interests in Africa and elsewhere. When civil war broke out in South Sudan several years ago, Chinese peacekeepers stayed in their barracks and didn’t try to help in any way. NATO country forces, especially from France, don’t have a successful history of military intervention in Africa.

Not only are the Russians, NATO and China waiting to see how this all plays out, but extremist groups in Africa now may see this as the time to make gains in insecure countries. Beyond any big power politics involved, there is a genuine risk of increased bloodshed and carnage on the continent in what may be a very unsettled situation in the near term.

Gregory Simpkins, a longtime specialist in African policy development, is the Principal of 21st Century Solutions. He consults with organizations on African policy issues generally, especially in relating to the U.S. Government. He also serves as Managing Director for the Morganthau Stirling consulting firm, where he oversees program development and implementation. He further acts as a consultant to the African Merchants Association, where he advises the Association in its efforts to stimulate an increase in trade between several hundred African Diaspora small and medium enterprises and their African partners.